Constance pulled back the edge of the dark burgundy insulated drape that covered the window of her motel room and peered out the gap. On the other side of the glass, it was reaching the cusp of darkness. The last throes of what little sunlight had been managing to penetrate the low clouds were throwing themselves against the coming night in a futile suicide assault. The dirty blue-grey shadows were winning, just as they always would.
In the dimness she could see that a light snow was still falling, just as it had been since mid afternoon. Something on the order of an inch, maybe a bit more, had accumulated so far. What she'd been able to tune in on the two-decades-old television told her that it would be picking up the pace, and there would likely be three to five more on the ground by morning, followed by another day of overcast skies and bitter cold.
It looked like it would be a white Christmas for Northern Missouri, not that anyone here in Hulis would be celebrating. Except for Merrie.
Out of instinct, Constance was resting the heel of her palm on the butt of her Sig Sauer. Her index finger was extended, and the others curled back against the quick release. She didn't consciously feel like she was being watched, but with all of the exceptional observations being made by Sheriff Carmichael, she had to admit to herself that she was somewhat spooked, which was unusual. After all, she worked cases on a regular basis with Rowan Gant, a paranormal consultant for the Saint Louis police and the FBI as well. She had been witness to some inexplicable things, so this shouldn't be a big deal.
However, she was accustomed to Rowan's preternatural cognition, and moreover, it was never centered on her personally. Being the focus of intimately detailed perceptions that were coming from someone she really didn't know was just plain creepy.
As she was allowing herself to be mesmerized by the falling snow, a soft ding combined with a rapid clatter sounded from the desk a few feet away. She turned her head in time to see her cell phone vibrate toward the edge, then stop, still safely inches away from the precipice. She allowed the drapery to fall back into place then padded over to the desk and picked up the device.
The display read, “1 New Text Message.”
She thumbed over to the text folder and opened it. The sender ID for the message that had just arrived was blank, but it was tagged urgent. Constance pursed her lips and sighed. Probably a SPAM text. She'd received them before. Just to be sure, she highlighted it and pressed OK. The message read, “CK PRSNL EML”
She scrunched her brow and frowned as she dropped herself into the desk chair and laid the phone aside. A pair of finessed jiggles and a re-orientation of the Gideons Bible later, she managed to hang on to a solid Internet connection and proceeded to download her personal email.
The window on the screen filled slowly with line after line of electronic communiques. She didn't have to spend any time sorting through them though, as one stood out immediately. Tagged urgent, with a blank field for both the sender and subject header, it appeared at the bottom of the list because whoever was behind it had set the date of the email to 12/25/1975.
She dragged the tip of her finger across the touch-pad to highlight the email, then gave it a quick double tap. A new window opened on cue. The body of the electronic communication was simply, “HEAVY SYMBOLISM OF THE SEASON. MERRY XMAS.” Below the body was an attached file, the name of which was a series of seemingly random letters and numbers.
Constance drew her finger around in a circle on the touch-pad, making the cursor orbit the file name on the attachment bar along the bottom of the email window. Pausing, she picked up her cell phone and scrolled the text message onto the screen again. Nothing. Just “CK PRSNL EML.”
Looking back at the computer screen, she began to circle the cursor around the attachment again. Documentation missing from a case file, cold shoulders from colleagues, and now this. Things were turning a little too cloak and dagger for her liking.
She stopped and picked up the cell phone again. She thumbed through the numbers in the personal phone book until she reached the entry belonging to her SAC. Something was definitely wrong here, and as much as she hated the idea, she feared some of her fellow agents might be involved. As she highlighted the number and allowed her thumb to hover above the dial button, she once again took notice of the pearlescent pink manicure that graced her nails courtesy of Merrie.
She brought her free hand up and inspected the lacquered tips of her fingers. Sheriff Carmichael's stern remark from the previous day echoed inside her head. “I'll do whatever it takes to protect our little girl... So will anyone else here in Hulis. And just so you know, that's not a threat, sugar, it's a promise.”
The words definitely weren't empty. There was something in his tone that told her as much. And for some reason, at this very moment she was feeling just as protective of Merrie Callahan as any actual resident of the town, including Carmichael.
Constance chewed on her lip for a moment, then looked back at the cell phone in her hand. Shifting her thumb, she dropped it down on the END button and cleared it back to the home screen without making the call. Laying it aside, she returned her attention to the notebook computer and slid the cursor over the top of the file, then quickly tapped twice on the touch-pad.
As it opened, her anti-virus software blipped onto the screen, announced that the file was clean, and allowed it to open. She heard the disk drive whirring, then the installed media player automatically loaded. A few scant seconds later, Burl Ives was belting Silver and Gold from the built-in speakers.
Constance stared at it for a handful of seconds, then puffed out an annoyed sigh and fell against the back of the chair. A damn Christmas song. What kind of a joke was this?
She slid her fingers up through her hair and brought her hands to rest on the back of her head. The knot where she dinged it was still tender, but she didn't care at this point. She simply held on as her chin drifted toward her chest. Then she let loose with another sigh.
Could it be that she was reading too much into all of this? “Lex parsimoniae, Constance...” she mumbled aloud. “Lex deus damnat parsimoniae...”
The law of parsimony. Occam's Razor. She needed to step back, look at the simple explanations first, and then work her way forward from there. Don't make it complicated unless it proves itself to be so. She was allowing the fact that she was feeling spooked to turn some clerical oversights and a conversation with a jerk agent into a rampant conspiracy theory.
She knew better than this. She knew she knew better than this.
Her stomach rumbled as Burl continued to croon, and she realized that she hadn't eaten at all today. She had some emergency energy bars stashed in her suitcase as usual, she knew that for sure. She might even have a military surplus MRE in there too. She couldn't remember offhand if she'd taken it out or not.
Her gut gave another low growl. It was telling her that an energy bar wasn't going to do the trick, and the MRE, if it was even there, didn't sound very inviting. Besides, tomorrow was Christmas Eve and she was going to be stuck on surveillance here in Hulis. Those vitamin-enriched, preservative-laden military rations could very well be her Christmas dinner.
Surely something was still open. It was dark outside, but it was still relatively early. She should probably head out now before the snow became too thick, not to mention that this was a small town. They probably rolled up the sidewalks early.
Her stomach issued another gurgling pang, so she decided to give in. She didn't recall hearing the end of the song, but Burl had finally stopped singing to her about silver and gold decorations, so now was as good a time as any to just get out and clear her head.
“You need a vacation,” she told herself aloud as she sighed, then dropped her hands and lifted her face.
That was when she saw it.
The media player was paused, and in the center of the screen was a small, rectangular window. In it was a winking cursor, and above it a string of text that said, “ENTER ENCRYPTION KEY.”
She blinked, just to be sure, and then continu
ed staring at the screen. Maybe Occam's Razor was a little dull this time after all. Now she just had to figure out what the encryption key was.
Behind the newly opened window she could see the original email. The text still read, “HEAVY SYMBOLISM OF THE SEASON. MERRY XMAS.”
She was sure that was a hint, but at the moment it wasn't much help.
She reached out and rested her fingertips on the home row of the keyboard, keeping her touch light. She thought about the tune that had played when the file opened, and then tapped out SILVERAN, however the DGOLD wouldn't fit. The field was only eight characters, so the song title probably wasn't it. She backspaced and pondered some more. A pair of false starts later she typed in SLVRGOLD. After a bit of trepidation washed over her, she hit enter.
The small window flashed quickly, then the words INCORRECT KEY! winked at her in bright red. After fifteen seconds or so, the prompt returned, ENTER ENCRYPTION KEY.
“At least it didn't erase itself,” she muttered.
Constance stared awhile longer, then in a moment of inspiration typed, BURLIVES and tapped enter.
The laptop whirred, the window flashed, and then once again it displayed the winking red INCORRECT KEY!
Disheartened, she sat back in the chair and glared at the screen. After several minutes of staring, she retrieved a flash drive from her laptop case and made a backup copy of the file. Then, she stood up and shrugged into her coat, dug out a handful of change from her purse, and headed for the door. There was a soda machine close to the motel office, and if this turned into a long night she would be needing caffeine. Besides, it was really looking like she'd be having an energy bar for dinner after all, and she'd have to have something to wash it down.
She mulled over the text of the email the entire time she fed quarters into the slot and made her selection.
“Heavy symbolism of the season. Merry Xmas,” she mumbled to herself as a can of cola audibly clunked its way along inside the humming machine, then thumped into the tray below.
She pulled it out and stuffed it into her coat pocket, then fed more coins into the slot.
“Heavy symbolism of the season. Merry Xmas... Santa Claus? No. Ten. Too many letters... Yule Log? Seven. Not enough...”
She sighed and shook her head. Whoever sent this wasn't making it easy, which either meant the information was extremely sensitive and maybe even classified above her grade... Or maybe they were just screwing with her. She wasn't quite sure which option she wanted it to be. The implications that came with the former weren't very good, and the latter would just piss her off.
Both pockets and the crook of her arm full of cans, she headed back to her room and settled in to work. If the previous night was any indication, she probably hadn't been in any danger of getting much sleep anyway.
It was pushing 3:00 the next afternoon when Constance finally gave in to her jittery exhaustion. She crawled onto the bed, pulled the blanket around her shoulders, and then quickly fell into a brief, tortured sleep that was filled with a painful nightmare. The terror playing out in her mind was stark, the images a contrasty black and white, save for the red suit the faceless man was wearing.
And then there were the vile, horrible things he was doing to her, over and over again.
While she tossed and whimpered through her slumber, across the room on the desk sat the notebook computer. Its cursor was still winking patiently below the words, ENTER ENCRYPTION KEY.